Crash Study Ranks Every Brand Of Leathers In MotoGP

According to the FIM, in the 2013 MotoGP season, there were a total of 865 crashes among all three classes (MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3). These crashes were spread among 124 riders, including wildcards, and any injuries stemming as a direct result were also recorded (though injuries discovered after the race were not included). In perhaps the first chart of its kind, Jarno Zaffelli examined all of this crash data to compile the first “unofficial” World Championship Standing for protective device manufacturers.

Zaffelli’s chart assigns each gear manufacturer the sum of points gathered from the respective riders in their respective classes. The report features an overall standing, a single class standing, and a Nation Cup, plus an analysis of brands‘ market penetration, distribution of investments, and center of costs, which as you can imagine produced some very interesting results. The full publicly available report is available here. Unfortunately, Zaffelli’s comprehensive, fully-detailed report is not available publicly.

Among the many interesting facts the report covers are the number of crashes from each individual manufacturer, the average crash ratio per rider in the season, which body part suffered the most injuries, the brand with the highest confidence from riders, and the hospitalization ratio based on leather manufacturers and class. Of course, going through this list would be quite long, so here are a few highlights:

25 different leather manufacturers represented 124 riders across all three classes.

Dainese is the most well represented brand overall, with 22 riders wearing its products. Alpinestars comes next with 18 riders, and Spidi is third with 14 riders.

If points were awarded to leather manufacturers dependent on their rider’s finishing order, a total of 7275 points would have been up for grabs among all three classes.

Of those 7275, Alpinestars scored the most points of any leather manufacturer with 2056. Dainese is next at 1711, with Spidi third at 1411.

In Moto2, the most well represented brand is Spanish company Danrow, followed by Spidi, then Dainese (Alpinestars is fourth). Though Spidi riders in the Moto2 category earned the most points in the class with 466. Alpinestars was second with 408, and Dainese is third with 393.

Ultimately the point of this analysis is to build safer racetracks and apparel, incorporating the data into several aspects of the design of both. Zaffelli’s work has already been applied to circuits like Imola, Misano, and Mugello, among others. It’ll be interesting to see how apparel companies incorporate the findings.